


Not So Random Destruction

by booksandboxsets



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Character Analysis, Femslash, One Shot, Other, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-15
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 10:54:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2307092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksandboxsets/pseuds/booksandboxsets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Random destruction makes you think of me?'</p><p>Mandy thinks back to the question she had asked Lip, back to the air of disbelief she had had in her voice upon asking it; there would be no disbelief now. The more thought she gave to it, the more the comparison made sense. Of course destruction would go hand in hand with Mandy Milkovich.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not So Random Destruction

**Author's Note:**

> shameless us femslash week: day 5 - angst  
> idk what this is like cos i've never written mandy pov before and i'm v. nervous.  
> trigger warnings: bruises, physical abuse

_'Random destruction makes you think of me?'_

Mandy thinks back to the question she had asked Lip, back to the air of disbelief she had had in her voice upon asking it; there would be no disbelief now. The more thought she gave to it, the more the comparison made sense. Of course destruction would go hand in hand with Mandy Milkovich.

She prods the bruising around her eye, wincing slightly; she hadn't had a black eye for a while but the slight throb the bruise gives when she touches it is not unfamiliar, it hadn't been  _that_ long. She wonders if the feeling will ever become unusual, wonders whether the partial vision impairment and the discomfort of blinking would feel strange if she went years and years without a black eye and then somehow got one again. She doubted it. Time doesn't have the ability to heal everything, not when it was something so engrained into her that it has become a part of her personality, something which has shaped her in an undeniable way. Lip's link proved as much, didn't it?

Mandy Milkovich is destruction.

How had she been confused about that? She had grown up with destruction, it was impossible for it not to have rubbed off on her, especially when black eyes were only the tip of the ice berg. Her upbringing was filled with destruction in a variety of different forms; broken bones, broken beer bottles, broken promises, broken hearts. A broken home.

A broken home which had broken her.

She rolls her eyes at her own self-pity, it isn't as if she's the only broken one around the Southside. The same home which broke her had also broken Mickey, who is currently shut away in his bedroom with his broken boyfriend who still won't get out of bed. Her broken self, her broken brother and her broken best friend; what a trio they are. 

She looks over at the man she's in bed with and the self-pity comes washing back in like a tidal wave. They weren't really a trio, she deceived herself with that. They were a duo and one outsider when they were together, and whilst her and Ian used to be the duo, the roles had drastically changed. She knew it wasn't intentional, but that didn't change the fact that when Ian or Mickey looked at her she became an eclipsed sun; sure, they could still see her light poking around the sides but ultimately, she was being blocked by the moon - they were all the other saw.

So Ian and Mickey may also be broken but they would help fix each other, supporting one another whilst they put themselves back together bit by bit. Mandy, on the other hand, had not found her missing puzzle piece, and however clichéd she believed the concept to be, it was a concept she craved. So much so that her desperation to find it had given her a wonderful reputation - easy Mandy Skankovich. She thought she had finally found it when she was with Lip. A slight chuckle slips out of her, Lip isn't anyone's puzzle piece, he is so full of himself that he probably doesn't have enough space for someone else. No, he hadn't been made to be with her, he had just been attracted to her destruction, had even named it beautiful. First Karen, then Mandy; up until college at least, 'destructive' girls were Lip's type. She could say the same for herself, here she was, stuck with Kenyatta, a man who is far too big to be her puzzle piece. A man who doesn't fit perfectly, a man who squashes himself in and ruins the edges of the pieces around him. He is a puzzle piece being inserted into the incorrect part of the jigsaw over and over and over again, damaging it more each time. Mandy sighs, getting up and heading towards the bathroom, prodding her eye again.

Upon getting there she splashes some water onto her face and looks up into the mirror, which is just as broken as everything else in the Milkovich home. She takes in the bruise properly and a clarity consumes her; how ironic that an injury which clouds her vision finally allows her to see _._  

She was in the broken cars Lip had smashed and the fact no longer amused her, because Lip was wrong,  _she_ had been wrong. It wasn't random destruction that had reminded Lip of her, it was self destruction. Because that's what Lip had been doing, smashing up cars because he felt like destroying himself - destroying his chance at college, his chance of a future. When he came close to destroying the best thing he had he thought of her, because that is what Mandy does every day of her life - destroy herself. She tells herself that she doesn't deserve an escape, that she is not good enough, no longer allowing herself to dream. She lets herself believe that she wasn't enough for her mother, that she is in some way responsible for her absence. She lets herself believe that abusive men, be it her father or Kenyatta, are something that she will always have to endure, that they are something she will have to accept because there will never be anything else, that the relationship she is currently in is the best she is going to get.

That is her way of self destructing - convincing herself that all this other destruction in her life is warranted, that it is her own fault. 

_It is not._

Or telling herself that all the destruction surrounding her is no big deal.

_It is._

The realisations make Mandy want to weep, but she had learnt to hold back the tears years ago so she just continues to stare at her reflection, a determination returning to her eyes that she had not seen in them lately. A strength which she had been replacing with numbness, a strength which had recently been diminished by other people,  _h_ _er_  strength - the strength which she had needed to get through her childhood - was suddenly no longer in short supply; it spread throughout her once more.

A strength that reminds her once again of Karen Jackson, who Mandy had randomly destroyed. Yes, Lip had definitely been wrong,  _random destruction is not beautiful._ But even before that, Karen had been destroyed - destroyed by bad fathers and bad relationships, just like Mandy. They are not the destruction, they are the aftermaths, and whilst Mandy shouldn't have to dig herself out of the rubble others left behind, she would, because Mandy Milkovich does not need a puzzle piece. She is her own. 

As she eventually looks away from the mirror and returns back to her bedroom and the man within it, something else she once said to Lip crosses her mind;  _'I'm not a tool. So you don't get to treat me like one.'_


End file.
